Message From The Executive Director
Social dialogue is still a relatively new phenomenon in South
Africa, which has longbeen bitterly polarised on the basis of both
race and class. Only in the late 1970s and1980s did the first
contacts occur at plant level between representatives of
emergingtrade unions representing Black workers and representatives
of Business. In the late 1980sand early 1990s, dialogue broadened
at a national level on labour, political and socialissues, leading
to several historic agreements including the
Cosatu-Nactu-SaccolaAgreement, the Groote Schuur Minute, the
National Peace Accord and, ultimately, an interimConstitution and
the successful holding of democratic elections.
The establishment in 1992 of the National Economic Forum, the
restructuring of theNational Manpower Commission in the same year,
and the formation of a number of policyforums between 1992 and
1994, provided an institutional basis for broadening the processof
dialogue and involving all organised interest groups in South
Africa. Despite theproliferation of forums during this period, the
content of these socio- economicnegotiations was limited to
short-term interventions by virtue of the fact that theGovernment
of the day was soon to change as a result of the first democratic
elections.
Building on this background after the elections, the National
Economic Development andLabour Council (Nedlac) was launched on 18
February 1995 as the central vehicle fordialogue on social and
economic policy between the newly elected Government and the
majororganised constituencies in the country. In a historic
statement of cooperation, Nedlac'sfounding declaration committed
Government, Business and Labour to jointly pursue the goalsof
growth, equity and participation.
For all involved with Nedlac, the period from that launch until
now has been an intenseand challenging experience. We are building
a social partnership between Government,Labour, Business and the
Community while, at the same time, engaging in policy debates
onissues on which there have been sharply contesting interests and
views. Nonetheless, inthe short space of 15 months, there have been
several achievements, while furtherchallenges also need to be
addressed.
Achievements
A respectable number of agreements have so far been concluded.
Altogether seven formalagreements have been concluded, including
the labour relations bill, mine health andsafety bill, agreement
that South Africa ratify six conventions of the InternationalLabour
Organisation, and agreements regarding the establishment of
institutions to promotesmall and medium-sized enterprises and
investment.
The most significant agreement reached was on the labour
relations bill, which wascompleted in 10 weeks. Developing policy
proposals and reaching agreement on policy isgenerally a
time-consuming effort which requires research, debate,
investigations andnegotiations. The speedy outcome to the labour
relations bill negotiations was onlypossible because several years
of work and debate on this area had already occurred, and
asubstantial negotiating document had already been drawn up by
Government by the time ofNedlac's establishment. Other issues have
generally been at a more preliminary stage ofpolicy development,
thus requiring more time for consideration.
As is evident from the reports that follow, there is a high
level of activity in allthe Nedlac chambers, with several critical
issues currently under negotiation. On many ofthese, substantial
work has already been completed, placing the Nedlac process
withinreach of further significant agreements within a reasonable
period of time.
Nedlac was required to begin its activities immediately, and had
to establish itssecretariat and structures at the same time as
commencing full-scale negotiations on thelabour relations bill and
other issues. Despite these difficulties, a credible andefficient
secretariat has been established.
After a lengthy process of selection, the organised community
constituency has beenestablished, consisting of five sectors of
civil society. After a year of activity, theCommunity constituency
has begun to consolidate into a credible partner in the
Nedlacprocess.
A positive relationship has started to evolve between the Nedlac
process and theparliamentary process. After difficulties during the
labour relations bill negotiations,an approach has since developed
to interact with appropriate parliamentary committees atan early of
stage of negotiations to fashion a pattern of interaction and
communicationwhich ensures that the negotiation process in Nedlac
is complementary to parliamentaryprocesses. This seems to have been
fairly useful so far.
Challenges
Much still needs to be done to strengthen and expedite the
Nedlac process. An evenhigher rate of "delivery" of agreements is
required. The time necessary toimplement agreements and establish
multipartite structures needs to be shortened. As onemeans of
addressing these challenges, an informal Nedlac senior-leadership
circle has beenestablished to expedite the process of
agreement-making.
Effective participation in Nedlac requires considerable capacity
on the part of eachconstituency. Through Nedlac's capacity fund,
some support for constituency capacity-building has been made
available. However, far more attention needs to be paid
tocapacity-building in order to sustain the negotiation
process.
The parties' commitment to growth, equity and participation made
at the launch ofNedlac has proven to be an insufficient foundation
for social partnership. A moresubstantial policy framework is
required to facilitate meaningful agreement-making and toavoid a
repetition of debates on different issues. To ensure that a
coherent outcomeemerges - which promotes equity, employment and
growth - a strategic rather than piecemealapproach to policy-making
is required. Despite the evident gap between recent Labour
andBusiness policy documents, there appears to be a commonality of
approach and interest withregard to several areas, including
education and training, productivity, industryrestructuring and
infrastructure development, which could provide a useful basis
tofurther build the social partnership upon. It is hoped that the
series of leadershipplanning meetings taking place will be able to
establish an understanding which enhancesagreement-making processes
in Nedlac.
The negotiations on the labour relations bill in the first half
of 1995 showed that allparties have deep-rooted respect for their
internal mandating requirements. As a result,it is most unlikely
that Nedlac could ever become simply a 'club' of the
leadershipengaging in talks above the heads of their members. The
labour relations bill experiencehas infused a more robust style of
interaction between the constituencies than that whichoccurred in
either the NEF or NMC. While this is a positive development to be
welcomed, ithas also led to a more cautious style of communication
and negotiation. Far more attentionneeds to be given by all
constituencies to enhancing a problem- solving process ofdialogue
in Nedlac, and to strengthening the facilitative characteristics of
Nedlac toensure that good communication and outcome-orientated
negotiation occur despite the robuststyle of dialogue.
Finally, our challenge remains to make full use of the special
"window" forfundamental social transformation which has opened as a
result of the transition todemocracy. This "window of change" will
only stay open for a while, not forever.Let us work to make the
coming year a period of successful agreement-making
andimplementation.
I would like to thank all the delegates to Nedlac structures and
members of thesecretariat who have given so much of their time and
energy to the process. A special wordof thanks goes to the members
of the reconstruction and development programme office whogave
their full and enthusiastic support to the Nedlac process in
general, and the work ofthe Development Chamber in particular.
Jayendra Naidoo
May 1996